How self-awareness changed my life forever
Hi and welcome to my first blog. In this one, I want to share with you how learning to be self-aware substantially increased my quality of life and helped me deal with the emotional baggage that was preventing me from living to my full potential.
The first time I tried weed
I am a firm believer that a person can truly appreciate something only when they feel its power. Self-awareness and mindfulness are one of those things. Coming from a dysfunctional family of divorced parents, where I was raised by an overly-protective single mom and my grandmother, I was naturally detached and self-unaware of my thoughts and emotions.
In September of 2012, I had what you would call an outer-body experience after the first time I tried smoking weed. I was 18, and I was completely overwhelmed by a cocktail of emotions, the predominant of which was fear. It filled every part of my body and I was terrified.
I was tripping bad — I lost my physical senses and for a while I thought that I’m dead. I got completely detached and I remember I could look at myself as if I’m playing a video game from a 3rd person view. This went on for several hours and after finally snapping out of it, I came to my senses. I realized that there was so much more happening inside of me that I wasn’t even aware of…
The beginning of my journey
I am by no means implying you should smoke weed (or use any other substance) in order to jump-start living a more conscious life. However, looking back at my experience, it gave me a completely different perspective on life and now I realize that was the very beginning of my journey to self-awareness and personal development.
One thing lead to another, I went to study abroad, got into fitness, found mentors online, read books on self-development, had a relationship with a girl who helped me deal with a lot of my personal issues, had some great experiences, and made friendships with truly amazing people. I started to discover what was lying underneath years and years of social conditioning and I was slowly putting the pieces of my puzzle together.
Fast forward
Here I am, 5 years later, and self-awareness is in my opinion the biggest asset you can have as a human being. It gave me the power to know I am actually in the driver’s seat, and I can change the way I perceive the world.
Often times the stories we tell ourselves are filled with illusions of our persona. Trying to be as self-aware as possible gave me the courage to look objectively at my weaknesses and my strengths, and be okay with it. This ultimately lead me to having a better self-confidence of who I am and where I come from.
A call to arms
This is a call to arms for anyone reading — start listening to yourself and become curious of your actions! Investigate your behavior and explore the inner world behind your feelings and thoughts!
If you’ve got what it takes to suppress your ego, look inward and search for answers!
It will change your life forever and you will reap benefits of indescribable magnitude!
